adreno
PR activist
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Call it a "guess" if you will. But it is our present best guess, based on the data that we have. Obviously, science is not written in stone.The reality is that we know very very little about viruses. So using the word "probable" is just a guess, nothing more. It might be true, but at this stage, it is just a guess. So why not take too many precautions instead of too few?
And by all means take all precautions. I'm not arguing against that. What I'm trying to do is be as realistic as possible, rather than starting a panic over something that probably will never happen.
And you can pack away the conspiracy theories, too. It is not just the CDC or government agencies that claim ebola won't become airborne. It is experts from around the world:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-the-ebola-virus-will-go-airborne/But interviews with several infectious diseases experts reveal that whereas such a mutation—or more likely series of mutations—might physically be possible, it’s highly unlikely. In fact, there’s almost no historical precedent for any virus to change its basic mode of transmission so radically. “We have so many problems with Ebola, let’s not make another one that, of course, is theoretically possible but is pretty way down on the list of likely issues," says infectious diseases expert William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University. "Everything that is happening now can easily be comprehensively explained by person-to-person spread via body contact. We don’t have to invoke anything else.”